| |
| ▲ | dwa3592 an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | Last year year Jeff bezos and I both paid taxes for the year of 2024. The percentage he paid on the money he made is far less than I did. I gave higher share of my income to the government than he did. Bezos's true tax rate was less than 1% and mine was around 25%. Link - https://itep.org/washington-post-rich-not-paying-fair-share/ | | |
| ▲ | SoftTalker 36 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | IDK what Bezos made as "income" last year but paper gains in asset values are not "income" for tax purposes, though some people might look at the increase in his wealth and call that money he "made" that year. But we don't have a wealth tax on a federal level at least. | | |
| ▲ | 9dev 29 minutes ago | parent [-] | | > some people might look at the increase in his wealth and call that money he "made" that year What in gods name would you call that otherwise? > But we don't have a wealth tax on a federal level at least And that somehow justifies rich people paying less taxes, because they navigate the system better than regular people? | | |
| ▲ | phyzix5761 20 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | He pays income tax just like everyone else. But the majority of his money is in investments, which many Americans already do as well with 401k and personal brokerage accounts. The people who can't afford to invest like that already pay close to 0% income tax as 40%-60% of households, historically, have paid 0% income tax in the US. | | |
| ▲ | 9dev 10 minutes ago | parent [-] | | They still pay payroll taxes, among others, which disproportionately affect poor people. |
| |
| ▲ | SoftTalker 15 minutes ago | parent | prev [-] | | Let's say you own your home and it increased in value last year. Do you feel like you "made" any money from that? Unless you sold it, probably not. | | |
| ▲ | wat10000 3 minutes ago | parent [-] | | Only because I live it in and can't easily sell it to raise cash. Let's say you own some stock and it increased in value last year. Do you feel like you "made" any money from that? I did and it did and I do. |
|
|
| |
| ▲ | WarmWash 43 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | >(including unrealized gains) They wrote that whole article out just to make it all meaningless with 3 words in parenthesis. "The plane crashed and everyone lived! (not including those who died)" | |
| ▲ | giantg2 an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | It seems your article is saying the same sort of thing I already stated - "The share of taxes paid by the richest 1 percent (24 percent)", right? You are talking about effective taxes rates, which are different. To discuss that, I would have liked to see a bit more detail in the article, like what the income sources were and the deductions and losses to offset gains. I think changes around capital gains and loans against equities could use some adjustments. The other taxes like payroll are basically moot as Bezos's payroll income is only about $90k per year anyways. | | |
| ▲ | atmavatar 6 minutes ago | parent [-] | | > I think changes around capital gains and loans against equities could use some adjustments. At minimum, taking out a loan based on the current value of an asset should trigger immediate realization of capital gains/losses for at least those assets used as collateral. After all, the gains are already de facto being realized for the purpose of the loan. Unfortunately, I'm not quite sure how to address the other side of things - that said loans often don't have to be repaid so long as the assets continue to gain. As such, the capital gains are actually being realized continuously by the loan, but I doubt it's feasible to properly handle that in tax law. |
| |
| ▲ | phyzix5761 28 minutes ago | parent | prev [-] | | This post makes the mistake of counting unrealized gains as income. That's not how taxes or investments work. Unrealized gains are NOT income. That's how they mistakenly come up with the number that he pays less than 1% in income tax. Investments, in general, are not income (unless held less than 12 months or if they pay dividends). Imagine you had to pay income taxes every year on the unrealized gains of your 401k, house, and car value. You too would be said to be paying a very low income tax rate. But again that's not how income taxes work because none of those things are income. If Bezos were to sell those shares and actually realize those gains then he would be rightly taxed but that would also likely tank the stock as his 8% ownership is significant enough to drop the price drastically. 55% of Amazon is owned by 401k and other retirement accounts so if the price tanks average Americans take a huge hit. Bezos does sell shares, all the time actually. You can see this in the SEC filings. And he is rightly taxed on those realized gains. But he's not going to sell all of his shares as that would be damaging to Amazon, the workers, retirement accounts, and his own investments. Instead, the money stays in the company paying worker wages, buying new facilities, etc. This is even better for the economy because it keeps the funds in circulation. This generates even more tax revenue than if he did a 1 time sale of his investments. That's why unrealized gains don't get taxed, because its financially a worse outcome than keeping the money in circulation. | | |
| ▲ | dwa3592 4 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | >>This post makes the mistake of counting unrealized gains as income. That's not how taxes or investments work. Unrealized gains are NOT income. Rich people always borrow money on the stocks they own. In effect, those unrealized gains help them borrow money which they spend like income. I will spend part of my paycheck to buy a cup of coffee and they will spend part of the loaned money to buy the same cup of coffee. They can also buy a house with that money. All they need to do is keep paying the 4-5% interest rate on that loan meanwhile the underlying stock appreciates at 15-20%. Is this a loophole that rich people enjoy? Absolutely. Does this loophole need to be closed - absolutely. | |
| ▲ | smallmancontrov 13 minutes ago | parent | prev [-] | | This post makes the mistake of assuming that everyone is on board with the "unrealized gains are totally different from income and should never ever be taxed a penny because that would be communism and implode the economy and kill kittens" hustle. It's a good hustle, because it takes precision to argue against and it's built around a kernel or two of truth, but these two kernels are firmly planted in a gigantic monumental turd of tax avoidance by the obscenely wealthy. | | |
| ▲ | phyzix5761 9 minutes ago | parent [-] | | Would you rather they hoard the money under their mattress or invest it back into the economy? Like I explained, the reason unrealized gains are not taxed is because they generate more tax revenue than if the individuals pulled out the money, made a 1 time lump sum tax payment, and hoarded the rest. Its not tax avoidance at all. Its a way to multiply tax revenue as that capital is used through numerous transactions that all generate federal and state income and sales taxes. |
|
|
| |
| ▲ | d3rockk 32 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | "I thought looking at the aggregates that the top 10% pay something like 1/3rd of all income/cap gain taxes." This is because much of the income of the wealthiest families in the country never appears on their income tax returns.
https://www.americanprogress.org/article/forbes-400-pay-lowe... What matters is the top 10% generates wealth through investments/equity/asset appreciation- stuff that the tax code barely touches.
The bottom 90% is locked into W-2 labor. The tax code gives capital gains a massive, legal pass- for those that can afford to exploit it.. aka, the ultra rich are paying far less taxes then they should be. | |
| ▲ | bryanlarsen an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Top 10% is the upper middle class, not the ultra rich. A successful surgeon making $1M per year is paying well over 40% a year in taxes, while Bezos is paying 1%. | | |
| ▲ | giantg2 an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | Do you have the data for that? I was wondering about tax paid (as dollars not effective rate- I know effective tends to me lower for HNW individuals due to accountants and other financial professionals they can afford). | | |
| ▲ | sbarre an hour ago | parent [-] | | > I thought looking at the aggregates that the top 10% pay something like 1/3rd of all income/cap gain taxes. If we're bringing receipts, how about you start? Do you have the data for this initial statement of yours? | | |
| |
| ▲ | WarmWash an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | | Bezos pays 40% too. His assets are not income. Just like your assets are not taxed. Ok, but he does that loan-against-assets hack! Well the fact is that those loans eventually need to be paid, so at some point he will pay that 40% (unless he does the step-up basis hack when he dies) Ok, but he should be paying annually like everyone else! Well, technically he is, his assets, the company Amazon, pays a lot of taxes annually. The government views Amazon as a money printer, states get their sales taxes, and the federal government gets their income taxes. All of which originate with Amazon. All of which is to say, that the uppe-middle/upper-class, the successful surgeon, is the one that needs to be paying more taxes to equilibriate society. | | |
| ▲ | Computer0 33 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | I want to see Bezos have all of his assets seized, and distributed to human beings instead of held onto like the goblin he is. I don't care about your defense of him. He should not be on the same planet as me. | | |
| ▲ | WarmWash 11 minutes ago | parent [-] | | If you can convince people that Amazon is a bad value proposition (i.e. stop giving amazon money for stuff), then you will effectively accomplish that. But you probably couldn't even count the number of people with Prime subscriptions that show up to an "Eat the 1%!" march... "It's just so convenient!" |
| |
| ▲ | bryanlarsen 42 minutes ago | parent | prev [-] | | > unless he does the step-up basis hack when he dies I'm sure we can count that as a given. > The government views Amazon as a money printer, states get their sales taxes, and the federal government gets their income taxes. Except when states fall all over themselves to give Amazon a massive tax break to build their second HQ. | | |
| ▲ | WarmWash 34 minutes ago | parent [-] | | >I'm sure we can count that as a given. It's very unlikely, he has pledged to give away most of his wealth in his lifetime, but there are a variety of factors that will always add space for detractors to make fair points. Bill Gates is still worth billions despite being an endless waterfall of charity money for decades. Either way, the step-up thing is way way way more common in the upper class, where people with ~$24M want their kids to get $6M each. These people are nobodies with no public image, and light years away from "Billionaire Class" status. > The government views Amazon as a money printer, states get their sales taxes, and the federal government gets their income taxes. All the employees will pay income tax, and they will mostly spend their money in the state, generating sales tax. Then there is the second order effect of businesses that pop-up to feed off the money that the employees make. |
|
|
| |
| ▲ | an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | | [deleted] |
|
| |
| ▲ | 9dev an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | This claim is often repeated but simply misleading. Taxable income is only a tiny fraction of the wealth of ultra rich folks - many even take symbolic wages, because their real compensation happens in stock, which they can use to lend effectively infinite money. There's a great episode of the Ezra Klein Show on this topic too[0]. [0]: https://open.spotify.com/episode/3Jjy4drElYHNMRtxVQPENR?si=5... | | |
| ▲ | AdrianB1 an hour ago | parent [-] | | That does not address the point. You say they should pay even more to address the idea that very few people pay most of the taxes, what is the logic here? | | |
| ▲ | idle_zealot 40 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | You're insisting on shifting framing to percentage of tax collected. That's irrelevant to the fairness question of percentage of income paid as taxes. The insane imbalance where the rich end up paying half of all taxes while simultaneously paying a fraction of their proportional wealth in taxes only highlights the massive difference in personal wealth. Taxing that at a higher rate only seems unfair if you take the view that all wealth is earned fairly and any attempt at altering the market's allocation of wealth is against the natural order. | |
| ▲ | 9dev 42 minutes ago | parent | prev [-] | | I'm not. I'm saying that the numbers OP stated were misleading. They refer to people with a high income - surgeons, laywers, or engineers -, but not the ultra rich, which don't have a high income in the first place, or it's a tiny slice of their cash flow, while the majority of it is made via non-taxable or low-taxed income streams. Which means that a lot of people pay a proportionally high percentage of their income, while the Epstein class pays effectively none. That's the logic here. |
|
| |
| ▲ | nickv an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Because wealth is also distributed in a very lumpy way across the city. 154 residents of NYC own 33% of the entire wealth of the city... notice I didn't say 1%, I said top 154. They are not contributing 33% of the tax income to the city. So yes, the ultra rich pay "less taxes" if you look at how much of the resident wealth they control. Also, property taxes are significantly lower than appraised value and the richer you get the bigger the disparity. That Ken Griffin’s $238M penthouse pied-a-terre? It's assessed value is $9M. So yea, he's paying like $150k/yr in property taxes. And finally, it is a known fact that sales tax definitely hits poor people harder (re: "everyone pays sale tax equally"). What you want to look at is what percentage of a person's post taxincome vs sales tax paid, because if you make like $60k/yr you're probably close to 60% of all post tax income paying some form of sales tax (you buy with all the money you make). If you have $2B, your percentage of "tax paid as sales tax" is significantly lower, because you don't typically spend a billion dollars the same way you spend $60k. | | |
| ▲ | AdrianB1 an hour ago | parent [-] | | Wealth distribution is a false flag. Rain distribution across the globe is not equal, solar light distribution is not equal and they impact people's life more than wealth distribution. USA and the entire planet's population is at record high in living standards and wealth, but some people are still unhappy because not everything is perfectly equal and at zero entropy like the thermal death of the universe: this is more than illogical, it is just envy without limits. | | |
| ▲ | mjamesaustin 31 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | Imagine 1.6% of the earth receiving nearly 50% of all sunlight, and 82% of the earth only receiving 12% of all precipitation. If rain distribution and solar light distribution were even half as unequal as wealth distribution, our global ecosystem would collapse. | |
| ▲ | fumar 39 minutes ago | parent | prev [-] | | A false flag to what? |
|
| |
| ▲ | jjav an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Surely you know this, but the rich are paying less percentage taxes relative to the money they have. | | |
| ▲ | busterarm an hour ago | parent [-] | | I'm familiar with the concept of crabs in a bucket, yes. That's why I left New York and abandoned my rent controlled apartment to do so. | | |
| ▲ | lovich an hour ago | parent [-] | | Oh shit, I didn’t realize the billionaires who can have multiple homes in Manhattan are crabs in the same bucket as us. Luckily the law is much more egalatarian and bars the rich and poor alike from sleeping under bridges or stealing bread. | | |
| ▲ | busterarm an hour ago | parent [-] | | NYC only has 154 billionaires. The percentage of NYC's second homes owned by NYC billionaires is fractional (59,000 total units). No, this will disproportionately negatively affect middle-class people and families and fuck them hard. > I didn’t realize the billionaires ... are crabs in the same bucket as us. All of us go to the same place in the end my dude. Life is too short and too hard to spend all your time living by comparisons. I'm sure the people you're worried about are just as miserable for other reasons. | | |
| ▲ | lovich an hour ago | parent [-] | | If you have a second home in manhattan, you are not the middle class _and_ you can afford it. If the idea of paying taxes affects your poor fragile mind so negatively then there is an easy solution where you can sell said extra home. No one is being fucked hard by this other than people who are appalled at the thought that they need to contribute to society for the negative externalities they create, like accumulating excess shelter in regions with a dearth of housing capacity. |
|
|
|
| |
| ▲ | 2OEH8eoCRo0 an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | | Voters don't feel like it's a fair deal. Telling voters that their concerns aren't real is a losing strategy. |
|
